Photobook Talk: Serhii Korovayny — Love Letters to Donbas

“Love Letters to Donbas” is a deeply personal memoir of Donbas, told through photographs, memory, and loss.
About this Event

Join Ukrainian photojournalist Serhii Korovayny as he shares his photobook, . The talk will be followed by a conversation moderated by Bernadette Tuazon, Director of Photography at CNN Digital, and an audience Q&A.

Korovayny grew up in Khartsyzsk, an industrial town in eastern Ukraine. Combining photographs made before the war with images from Mariupol, Bakhmut, Pokrovsk and other cities transformed by Russia’s invasion, the book traces his evolving relationship with the region he once called home.

Part memoir and part visual archive, Love Letters to Donbas preserves the landscapes, communities and everyday moments that existed before destruction, occupation and displacement.

Korovayny will share photographs from the project and discuss returning to Donbas as both a local and a photojournalist, working across personal memory and documentary evidence, and transforming more than a decade of photography into a book.

A conversation and audience Q&A will follow the presentation.

This event is free. Advance registration is encouraged.
Header image: Remains of the wheat field finishing burning near the highway from
Pokrovsk to the frontline. Many fields in this area are set to hire from Russian
shelling these days (not sure about particulary this one). © Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

Opened in 1990, the Metinvest coal mine is the biggest in Ukraine and one of the crusial factories for Pokrovsk, biggest employer and economic driver of the city and region. Up to 7000 people worked here before the war and around 4500 now. The mine producing the coke coal, specific coal essencial for steel production. If Russians will occupy or destroy the mine, it will create big problems for Ukrainian aconomy. To see how the mine works, we got up to the 800 meters deep tunnels and walked more then 4 km to the nearest coal-reach ground place.
© Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

Medics of the 53 Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine helping Stanislav, 24, who recieved abdominal wound on April 18, 2023, near Avdiivka, Ukraine
© Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

The FotoEvidence Association, in partnership with the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPP), has launched FotoEvidence Ukraine—an initiative to support Ukrainian photographers and contribute to the preservation of Ukrainian culture. This effort focuses on creating photobooks that document the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2014, ensuring these records populate libraries and schools and preserve this history for future generations.

Tural owns the small kebab shop Littlw Baku in Pokrovsk. His shop servs soldiers and locals passing along the main road in the city. The parrot's name is Fedya, and he is teh favorite Tural's pet. Now, Tural thinks about evacuating to Dnipro due to the approaching frontline.
© Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

Russian POWs at the unclosed location on Eastern Ukraine. Most of them were captured resently an the Southern direction as Ukrainian couneroffense taking shape all over the frontline.
© Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal